


Pipe Dreams & Other Assorted Evils

by TheColorBlue



Category: Dumbo (1941)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A snapshot in a life. Timothy Maus is a hooligan and Jonathan Jeremiah Jr. has a weakness for peanuts and circus stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pipe Dreams & Other Assorted Evils

Jonathan Jeremiah Jr. was eleven years old when his mother was taken away to a mental health facility for forced institutionalization. There was something said about hysteria and violent behavior, but all Jon knew was that his mother had never ever raised a hand against him. She had, however, smacked that boy who had been bullying Jon outside the apartment, and then charges had been raised, and also all those stories about her questionable mental health were dredged up, and Jon’s mother was taken away. Jon was sent to live with his gossipy Aunt Catty, who always invited her friends over and talked about him and his mother while he was still present. She had a lot of things to say: about how sordid and terrible it was that Jon’s mother had gotten pregnant out of wedlock, about how dense Jon was, and how it really was out of the generosity of her soul that she was going to do her best to shape him into a presentable boy.

Everyone called him Dumbo because he didn’t talk. Other kids bullied him because of his quietness and on account of his big ears.

Jon sometimes snuck out to sit on the fire escape outside the apartment. Or he went upstairs to the roof where there were fat pigeons and he wished that he could fly.

There was a man named Timothy Maus. He was quite old, well into his twenties, and he found Jon one day reading on the rooftop. It was one of those children’s serials, a Hank Johnston book: _Hank Johnston and the Circus Adventure_. When Jon saw Timothy come out of the rooftop door, smoking a cigarette and looking surprised to see him, Jon would have hid for sure, except there was no place to hide.

Timothy raised both hands, lazy with it. “Here now, kid, I ain’t gonna hurtcha. Ya look like I came up here with a pick-axe or something’.” He looked at Jon scrutinizingly. “Aww, I know you. You’re that kid the lady elephants are always gossiping about, shame on them. Hey, you hungry? I’ve got roasted peanuts, fresh from the shop down the street.”

Timothy came over closer, hands still open, one of them holding the cigarette of course, and Jon didn’t have anywhere to hide, gosh darn it.

Timothy squatted down and procured a paper bag from his jacket pocket.

 Jon peered inside. He looked up at Timothy, then back inside the bag, and then helped himself to a peanut.

Then he helped himself to another peanut.

Then another.

Okay, he was hungry. Sometimes he avoided meals because Aunt Catty would go on and out about his deficiencies, then his mother’s deficiencies, and sometimes he wasn’t sure he could bear it.  

The peanuts were fresh and good, and Timothy says, “Now, I think a quiet kid like you isn’t stupid, just thoughtful, ya know? Look at ya, reading and all of that up here instead of going around with other kids and hitting each other with sticks or whatever it is that y’all get up to around here, these days.” He looked down at Jon for a moment, rubbed his nose a little, and then said. “Tell ya what: come down with me to my apartment, and I’ll make you a real sandwich, how’s that. Probably better than what you’re getting fed now, I’ll bet.”

Jon wasn’t supposed to go around with strange men, he knew that. But the alternative was maybe staying up here, or going back home, and also all the peanuts were gone.

And, well. Timothy wasn’t completely strange to him. Jon had seen him around. Aunt Catty had something to say about everyone in the building, anyway, and she said that Timothy Maus was a hooligan who always seemed to think he was on to another big idea, all hot air and no substance.

Jon finally decided on sided with the lesser of two evils, and he followed Timothy back down the stairwell.


End file.
